I survived last night in the Cairo Days Inn. I walked in the restroom and there was a toad hopping around. The light fixture over the sink was a desk lamp hanging upside down on the florescent fixture.
I woke up and had the complimentary breakfast, then Henry (the desk clerk) got off at 7:00 when he drove me to Cave in Rock. I stopped there with my kayak yesterday and left it on the Kentucky side. No one lives nearby on that side and a free ferry runs pretty regularly.
Henry dropped me off and I had a little while to wait for the ferry. A guy stopped with a bicycle which he was obviously using to travel.
His name is Mark. He is a Construction Technology teacher from Georgia. He began his trip in Oregon and is headed back to his home in Georgia. We took picture of each other while on the ferry.
Nobody bothered my kayak overnight. This is what it looked like covered over with wood and plants. Do you see a kayak?
I was on my way at about 11:00. I saw lots of houses built on rocky cliffs and some really nice ones like this.
As I approached Elizabethtown, Illinois I was looking for this gazebo. It's a landmark boaters look for along the river. It's part of a bed & breakfast in E-town......one of two.
I stopped and ate at the E-town River Restaurant. I sat on the top deck where I could watch my kayak. The river is so much higher now, my kayak was actually sitting in water on grass that had been mowed not too long ago.
The restaurant's speciality is catfish. While waiting for my food, this boat pulled up and unloaded about 200 catfish they caught overnight. You can't get catfish much fresher than that!
Next stop was Rosiclare, Illinois. At first I thought this would be as close as I could get to the town.
As it turns out, they had a nice park along their flood wall. There was a floating dock to tie up to and a cut in the flood wall to go into town.
Downtown Rosiclare. I really didn't need anything yet, but I went ahead visited their local grocery store.
Back on the river, I took this photo showing the debris and muddy water. Since the break in my trip from two weeks ago, it has rained all but one day. The current is fast and the river is about a foot higher.
If I were going to do one thing different on this trip, it would to get an optical zoom lens for my camera. There are lots of wildlife photos I could take, but by the time I get close enough, the animals are spoked. On the left side is a floating log with 8 turtles sunning themselves. But they take off when I get close.
These cattle where in the river, but stampeded when they saw me.
This guy didn't seem too concerned with me.
Toward the end of the day, I was still going into,the sun. But I turned around a saw dark storm clouds approaching
I got my tent set-up and went back to the kayak. When I turned around, the tent was blown on it's side and headed toward the river. Fortunately I had enough stuff in it to hold it in place. O turned on the radio and they said to expect rain, damaging hail and 60 MPH wind gusts.
This is my tent sent up on an island, about 30 feet above the river It rained the rest of the evening and into,the night. There was virtually no data signal here, but I could make a short call to let my kids know I was alright.
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